“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
The event management arena is an evolving space. There are newer and better event technology trends evolving with each passing day. Identifying them, understanding them and pursuing to integrate them into your next event successfully is necessary for organizers to be on top of the game.
Let’s look at a compendium of event technology trends that surfaced in 2022 that will help event organizers in the near future:
Podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to engage audiences. The significance of podcasting in the event engagement space is growing gradually as it is a major driving force in audience deliveries. Nowadays, event organizers are integrating podcasts into their event marketing plans. Moreover, podcast broadcasts have the power to amplify the event’s online presence.
The critical advantage that podcasts offer to various event stakeholders like organizers, sponsors, and attendees is that they get to curate unique content that gets featured live during the event. So, a keynote speaker, for example can be invited by a sponsor at their podcast booth at the event for a live podcast. This would see audiences gather around the booth garnering engagement that eventually amplifies the brand and results in it getting a distinct perception by attendees.
180 Degree Video
180-degree video is slowly making inroads in the events industry. One of the significant advantages that it offers is that it simplifies VR video production at events.
YouTube and the Google Daydream VR division recently announced that they are partnering with Yi, Lenovo and LG on VR180 cameras available for mass-market use geared to democratize VR video creation. It also offers some peculiar production techniques like directors sitting behind the camera to manage shoots, lack of provisions to make production cuts and not worrying about removing unwanted objects in the frame. While production from 360-degree stereoscopic cameras is complicated because of its technical skill requirement and cost, crafting unique content is easier through the 180-degree options available.
Motion and Gesture Analytics
Gesture analytics essentially refers to voice and gaze-based technologies that have recently emerged, providing event organizers with analytics that are quite different in nature. While surveys and feedback forms provide organizers with vital data, the likes of eye-gaze technology and voice analytics are slowly taking over.
These technologies focus on what people feel at your event and how they feel about the brand once the event is over. For example, eye-tracking has had a tremendous impact on mobile commerce, according to insights released by ModiFace and Smashbox Cosmetics. The IOS App MakeUp is the medium on which they both collaborated. It featured ModiFace’s face-tracking and video makeup rendering technology as well as Smashbox products.
Here, heatmaps were layered on specific areas of the screen that allowed the brand to see exactly what the users were looking at, for how long they looked at it and read the details of a particular product.